Thursday, December 13, 2012

What qualifies as holiday “festive,” rather than just downright tacky?

CALUMET
CITY, Ill. – It’s that time of the year when some people are going to take
offense at holiday displays in public buildings; claiming that somehow our rights
to believe what we want are threatened by the presence of a giant Christmas
tree.

It might not be politically offensive, but City Hall in Calumet City these days definitely overdoes the holiday spirit. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

Personally,
I think the “threat” to our right to believe what we want is threatened more by
the people who try to make an issue out of it.

PARTICULARLY
THOSE WHO claim there’s a “War on Christmas.” As though we have to have their
vision rammed down our throats for all to be at peace in the world!

But
the reality is, I don’t get seriously offended by holiday displays (although I
still think all these years later that the people who put up a “Festivus Pole”
at the Illinois Statehouse a la Seinfeld had way too much free time on their
hands.

What
does seriously offend me is when the holiday displays get so overbearing and
gaudy that they take what should be a solemn holiday for reflection and turn it
into a tacky festival.

If
anything, I think many of these public displays for the holiday are offensive –
and not just because they were erected just before the Halloween holiday.

IF
ANYTHING, I’M nominating my one-time hometown of suburban Calumet City for one
of the gaudiest holiday displays in the greater Chicago area. It may be the
tackiest, although if anyone out there is aware of something more cheesy, feel
free to let me know.

Government activity inside not as festive as City Hall entrance

What
they do in Calumet City is erect lights all over the City Hall, 204 Pulaski
Road, and in the trees of Pulaski Park located just across the streets.

Those
lights are on a timer so that at the top of the hour all through the day, a
light show is displayed. Lights flash on and off with more synchronization than
at the Hoosier-based casinos that exist just a couple of miles away in Hammond,
East Chicago and Gary.

Considering
that Calumet City is among the municipalities that has made it clear they want
the south suburban-based casino that Illinois officials keep hinting will
someday be built, perhaps this is just a test run for how flashy a building can
be made to look.

BUT
IF THE light show isn’t enough, the sound system runs through a string of pop
songs that pass for Christmas carols.

Personally,
I find the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “Christmas Time is Here” (you probably think
of it as the Peanuts’ cartoon holiday song) soothing the first few times I hear it.

Although
passing through the area near City Hall in Calumet City and suddenly being
startled by the sound of Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the
Year” definitely threw me out of the holiday mood. In fact, that song may now
join that holiday ditty with the barking dogs doing Jingle Bells as pop culture
dreck that I never want to hear again.

Take your pick which holiday tree you want to see lit up

And
yes, I’ll concede that I’m not much of a photographer, although these images
taken Wednesday night do convey some of the sense of the gaudiness that area
residents have to put up with.

BECAUSE
THE VOLUME on the music is definitely loud enough to be heard for blocks around
– including into Indiana (which admittedly is only two blocks to the east).

How
long until the neighbors (there are houses within a block of the building) take
up their pitchforks and storm the building – demanding a silence to the
holiday-inspired racket?

So
if you have a low threshold for holiday kitsch, don’t say I didn’t warn you in
saying to stay away from City Hall in Calumet City – where these days municipal
officials are going through the process by which they try to knock their
political opponents off the ballot for the Feb. 26 municipal elections so they
can run unopposed.

I am a Chicago-area freelance writer who has reported on various political and legal beats. I wrote "Hispanic" issues columns for United Press International, observed up close the Statehouse Scene in Springfield, Ill., the Cook County Board in Chicago and municipal government in Gary, Ind. For a time, I also wrote about agriculture. Trust me when I say the symbolic stench of partisan politics (particularly when directed against people due to their ethnicity) is far nastier than any odor that could come from a farm animal.